As the holiday season looms, some of the rosebushes in my garden are still producing a few flowers. They are all beautiful in the late autumn light, but perhaps the most striking is the rose-pink rugosa rose. It has grown large, thanks to the abundance of fall rain, but now its leaves have turned bright … Read more
I have a passion for just about all roses, and right now, as they put on their brave last act, I feel especially tender towards them. The changes in light—intensity and duration—have affected their colors. The petals of my red and white-striped ‘Scentimental’ are now more red than white. Back in May the color ratio … Read more
My garden is a riot of activity at the moment, with honeybees, bumblebees, skippers and pollinators of all kinds swarming over the exuberant asters and rampant perilla mint. All that frantic action almost obscures what is missing—the big butterflies, like monarchs and swallowtails, which floated through the garden every day in the summer. They are … Read more
Everyone has a garden dead zone. It can be a small area or a larger one where nothing seems to last very long. You buy plants over and over again that are labeled as “hardy” or “tough”, and install them with high hopes, only to watch helplessly as they struggle and die. Containers might work … Read more
Being in my garden is my greatest joy. But life events this year have sliced into garden time, shredding it into small, irregular increments. The situation will improve eventually, but as the growing season has progressed, I have learned that even absence from my garden has its compensations. The lesson came from my neighbor, a … Read more
